Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are health concerns on the rise globally, but are growing at alarming rates in the United States. Sugar and calories are key components that can be limited to render a positive nutritional effect on health. High-intensity sweeteners can provide the sweetness of sugar, with various taste qualities. Because they are many times sweeter than sugar, much less of the sweetener is required to replace the sugar.
High-intensity sweeteners have a wide range of chemically distinct structures and hence possess varying properties, such as, without limitation, odor, flavor, mouthfeel, and aftertaste. These properties, particularly flavor and aftertaste, are well known to vary over the time of tasting, such that each temporal profile is sweetener-specific (Tunaley, A., “Perceptual Characteristics of Sweeteners”, Progress in Sweeteners, T. H. Grenby, Ed. Elsevier Applied Science, 1989)).
Sweeteners such as saccharin and 6-methyl-1,2,3-oxathiazin-4(3H)-one-2,2-dioxide potassium salt (acesulfame potassium) are commonly characterized as having bitter and/or metallic aftertastes. Products prepared with 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid are claimed to display reduced undesirable aftertastes associated with sweeteners, and do so at concentrations below those concentrations at which their own tastes are perceptible. In contrast, some high-intensity sweeteners, notably sucralose (1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-β-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-α-D-galacto-pyranoside) and aspartame (N-L-α-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester), display clean sweet tastes very similar to that of sugar (S. G. Wiet and G. A. Miller, Food Chemistry, 58(4):305-311 (1997)). In other words, these compounds are not characterized as having bitter or metallic aftertastes.
However, high intensity sweeteners such as sucralose and aspartame are reported to have sweetness delivery problems, i.e., delayed onset and lingering of sweetness (S. G. Wiet, et al., J. Food Sci., 58(3):599-602, 666 (1993)).
Hence, there is a need for compositions containing high intensity sweeteners with improved taste and delivery characteristics. In addition there is a need for foods containing high intensity sweeteners with such desirable characteristics.